Ogham Mystery and the River Caragh
One of the most beautiful places in Co. Kerry (and there are many) is along the River Caragh. It’s part of Killarney National Park, and we were lucky enough to have a boat ride on the river. The Caragh is popular for its abundance of fish.
Writes Yeats …”Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows, Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose?”
I found this beauty in the garden of our Glencar hotel.
And in that same backyard, I found this stone with odd markings. Immediately, I thought I had found some undiscovered ancient writing, a lost font of Irish Ogham. Ogham is the earliest known form of the Irish alphabet, according to OghamArt.com Many of the inscriptions, of which there are about 400 known surviving carvings, seem to represent names and territorial divisions.
I asked the owners if it was Ogham, and they said no. It’s not quite like Ogham – the shapes are geometric instead of slashes. Yet no one could tell me exactly what, if not Ogham, the symbols meant.
Any other guesses, theories, or hypotheses?
For additional Ogham information, check out Every Ogham Thing on the Web.